hello i'm tom arbonne in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture the battle lines are drawn in congress as republicans fight to prevent both a tax cut for middle class americans or a tax increase for the rich donors in the top one percent by trying to force an democrats to go along with the toxic oil pipeline that will make billions for texas oil moguls like a coke brothers which party will flinch first find out tonight in tonight's big picture rumble and obamacare fordable care act is open up some fascinating

opportunities for new ways to deliver health care in america in this week's conversations with great minds we'll meet a true pioneer who may well help revolutionize your relationship with our health care system and what could rats teach republicans you'll be amazed by the answer will share with you from the annals of recent scientific research in tonight's deleter. are you ready to rumble joining me on the panel tonight vince collin a senior online editor of the daily caller roger hickey co-director the campaign for america's future and brian darling for human events dot com and director of government studies at the heritage foundation let's get let's get started well you got to have you here with us the senate republicans yesterday filibustered a payroll tax cut extension for one hundred sixty million. americans

a thousand bucks apiece on average and at first they filibustered this because there was. a three point eight percent on income over one million dollars on the million and first so that was you know that they didn't go for that now they're talking about slapping the keep the keystone x.l. pipeline in there which obama has already said he doesn't want anything to do with he will vote he will veto so it sounds like what they're saying is we'll give the middle class their tax cuts but only if they're willing to choke on the pollution from our refineries why do republicans insist on combining tax cuts for the middle class with poison pill well obama not liking the x.l. pipeline is actually sort of a recent development i mean he's very much been in favor of the x.l. pipeline on behalf of his unique constituency because the unions are clamoring for this what you want i mean is that ok rove got others that there were no ideas it will create thousands of jobs what who are left the constituency the left the environmental left and that's what he's having trouble being able to bring out the has the right what yet when you push it on the twenty third could obama still wants to do it you know it could be that this pipeline thing is just

a killer pill to make sure that nothing passes the republicans are not really interested in creating jobs when it comes to stimulate the economy the way obama has proposed it this is the most the most totally republican his jobs act the things that he's proposed cuts to the. period trust fund tax and also the unemployment insurance extensions and these guys have found a reason after reason after reason not to not to go forward with the number and is this all a strategy to crash the economy. maybe by the democrats i mean the republicans you said republicans filibustered the payroll tax cut more than five hundred fifty votes did two they filibustered the republican plan to be honest in the senate vote the republican and the democrat plan and both were the subject of filibusters so it's not it's not honest to say that only republicans were opposing all the game plan was not a tax cut for the one look the white house and why. so well if they supported the

payroll tax cut he'd follow what's that paid for with what paid for by will the first version how to pay for by freezing government government pay lay off a bunch of government and i was in loopholes as a yes and now the new ones are going to fire a bunch of people to do her victory and i just thought it was just other than raising taxes to cut taxes that makes no sense that going on job creation the white house is trying to frame this as some sort of partisan discussion now and the fact is the fact is the bill in its current state is actually very bipartisan democrats are leading the way on wanting this payroll tax holiday extended simultaneously republicans are actually offering to do the x.l. pipeline which is something obama wants to do but all of a sudden found out that it's a political liability for him so he's going to shut off he wants until twenty one and that he was and this is the week when three thousand unemployed people came to washington they went to congressional offices and what they discovered is congress doesn't care about about other point people especially republicans don't care about employed people so they tend to those not the ones who k.-street and what is good

and on congressman's car and to those numbers talking about unemployment i thought this is fasting corporations in america right now are sitting on two trillion dollars in cash just sitting out just sitting there is not making jobs stuff i read about not that and so republican montra for this is well you know we've got to have but we can't raise taxes on the millionaires because then they won't create any jobs n.p.r. actually went to the g.o.p. and to you know a couple of the organization i think was the. what is now the business round table one of them one of the big groups and said please find us one business person who makes over a million dollars a year and here's what they here's what they found. we wanted to talk to business owners who would be affected so n.p.r. requested help from numerous republican congressional offices including house and senate leadership they were unable to produce a single millionaire job creator for us to interview so we went to the business groups that have been lobbying against the surtax again three days after putting in

a request none of them was able to find someone for us to talk to so we put a query on facebook and several business owners who said they would be affected by the millionaire surtax responded it's not in the top twenty feelings that we think about when we're making a business hire even yank when there's a whole third letter ozone layer if you have a couldn't find a small businesses to talk to to get both sides they could go to republican crew why didn't they do their own investigation idea of cutting the payroll tax and extending the unemployment thing is the best thing you can do to put money in people's pockets so they can go to their local small businesses and retail firms and buy stuff which means the ideal job creators or consumer exactly yeah but republicans do want to extend the payroll tax cut they're going to support an extension of the payroll tax cut they just don't want to engage in class warfare and tax the rich and waiting for we're waiting we're always going to pass exams

a matter of it's a matter of doing it responsibly too i mean clearly doing what payroll said without paying payroll the payroll tax matters no that's not responsive to the way reagan did the payroll tax feeds into social security right that's the whole point of this thing and if we're going to make it more and solve it by nothing not paying for it that's a problem no difference at all that you have here the great supporter of social democrats here you go he's going to give you a hint about the make for sure that they're going to take money from the general fund and put it into social security that's that was like a wonderful security all the time and put it in the general fund i'll tell you something. the this president who sounded like teddy roosevelt the beginning of the week is going to is willing to stay here in washington until they pass a nice clean stimulus plan. that the democrat the republicans used to support this is then he's going to jet off to hawaii and hang out with the rich and famous golfer assumes not believing until the republicans do the job will see when christmas comes any other payroll tax cut for the for the middle class isn't the only thing is set to expire at the end of your so or so or payroll unemployment

benefits and congressman jack kingston republican has introduced legislation this week to require anybody who is unemployed to pee in a cup and this strikes me as amazing first of all rick scott tried this down in florida right wing republican down in florida and. aside from the fact that he owns a company that does drug testing which is raised a few eyebrows what they found was and this was just for welfare recipients what they found was that two point five percent of welfare recipients test positive for drugs nine percent the general population does like a waste of time to begin with secondly isn't this really the definition of big government to say before you're going to get your unemployment benefits that by the way you paid for because they would you don't you can go and i think there are. no big government this is big government to do and i am nice and to actually sit down and employment a little invasive and convert unemployment new entitlement programs so why don't we just pay people not ninety nine weeks or just just not to work let's just pay

people more for a longer longer period of time to stay unemployed then we'll never have any employment because you people love me no motivation or should people be required to pee in a cup how about at the d.m.v. when you're getting your driver's license how about when you're getting your honey license you have to pee in a cup for that you would think that there would be a higher correlation in the drug violators look then people on welfare this is about good stewardship i mean good stewardship of the people's resources now i will say i will say this about giving back the money you pay and i will say the numbers in charlotte numbers that we've had a real chance to test and see florida indicate that there is a low incidence of this so it obviously it's one of those things where i think that well as you know this is unemployment now but i don't know what i'm talking about yet but i'm talking about him. right so there's a low incidence of people positive in this case but with that said with that said new drugs good stewardship have been used on wall street really good stewardship of the people's resources is an important thing in any where we can make sure that we have accountability checks i think is actually important so i'm all in favor of the do i'm all in favor of drug testing lawmakers to i think that's like

a perfectly reasonable thing to do as long asserted we even have anti-drug laws these are the same people who are requiring folks to go out people who have voted for years and years and years go out and get new i.d.'s to prove that they're american citizens people who have been voting for years and years it's the same people who are trying to restrict people's availability to their government programs and they're the most just we just we're going to want to see you guys you guys say you don't want big government and then you want the government saying maybe you have maybe you can't you got to be in the cup before you get the money you know this leads to dependency when people stay on welfare forever when they get unemployment benefits for extended can get any one time benefits forever i wouldn't want to live and again that country is a much lower meandered of living has he has a much lower speed look i don't know why with that we do have here in nashville a gross national income if you look at the average amount to look at are making they're not making as much as it actually supply really nice and dandy but i think breyer actually defending this thing i think for example look at the early ninety's

look at welfare reform and then honestly say honestly look at him go does it matter to the extent that we expand you know what happened with that welfare reform is a bill clinton pulled out a safety net when people didn't need it so nobody noticed now it's gone and people are following this road and we've got a break i'll allow you to go after after this break in the room stick around. drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through that sort of b.p. had made who can you trust no one who is you know view with the global machinery see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more. for.

the back of this week's friday rubble i'm joined by vince columnists roger hickey and brian darling let's get back to it three people are dead in texas as a result of what happens we're talking about the social safety net being shredded and actually by a democratic president just a few minutes ago texas mother rachelle grimmer and her two kids fell on hard times lost their jobs just like tens of millions of other americans needed food stamps you applied for them she was denied by rick perry's texas department of health and human services she also was mentally ill and had been untreated for that for years

because she had at no access to it to insurance or free mental health resources she killed one of her kids the other kid is near death she killed herself right there in the welfare office when she was denied the food stamps forty six million americans at the end of the rope just you know just getting by on food stamps and rick santorum comes out and says we shouldn't have food stamps in this country because there are too many obese people what the hell is going on what is going on with this you know this this story is offensive to me and not be just because of the fact that people died but because right now i mean you're using it as a political tool in order to swing a need for more food stamps and maybe beneath the idea if you call it this is like when you had having merivale and blame for gabby giffords shooting it is that absurd this man this woman was mentally ill we were in her bad situation in this country would have a very very bad situation in this country where. where literally hundreds hundreds of thousands of people are desperate for where to feed their children and it's

important that we focus on it is a new story that's not using the politically deadly that's that's putting it in for discussion only when people are struggling rational reasonable people are struggling that is that's a good way and it's a good way to use that as one method of the idea of people can't get help when they can't get mental it's one until illness if it isn't from it's being framed through a lens i mean mental help mental help is one thing but is being from the lines of oh she didn't get food stamps therefore she killed herself i'm saying that was that was the trigger that provoked her mental illness which was untreated somebody said they didn't want to live in germany or some. i don't live in germany you mean you're not a you know you get free healthcare and you have people mill themselves in germany to. safety net this is a tragedy we should pray for these individuals it's an awful situation but you can't blame rick perry you can't blame barack obama for what happened there is fraud waste and abuse in the food stamp program it's expanded exponentially over the last five years because now it's because we're in the middle that. you now have

lobbyist pushing forward you know the food industry because now prepared foods can get paid for with food stamps so it's exploded and we have about two point five billion in fraud are slated to be our society that has always been inadequate but when you put on the pressure of unemployment and huge number of people unemployed and suddenly you've got to expect a tragedy is one thing that is expanded like exponentially and clearly obviously the economic downturn leaves a role but the bombing ministration has moved from thirty five billion dollars in the food stamp program to seventy five billion dollars yeah it's a real statement of how badly the bottom half of this country is doing what we can speaking speaking of how badly people are doing mitt romney's in trouble newt gingrich seems to be eating his lunch the same angle metaphors here new game bridges leading the republican primary in iowa two to one. eighteen points over romney this is this is the and week is not the election this is incredible and the

guy that's beating romney is twice divorced washington insider took a million and a half bucks as a lobbyist for fannie mae historian and supported the individual mandate. is this is like anybody with romney is this. serious serious question this is just it is this because romney is a mormon i don't you know i don't get it course that doesn't matter at all i think mitt romney is a moderate republican these not the most conservative candidate out there there is newt no but newt's been very aggressive in opposing the obama administration the ridicule the super committee during these debates he's been very vocal and i think a lot of the tea party people look at the republicans like people who slap others down now be like they want somebody who's going to fight against the failed policies of the obama administration i think we're saying it's really amazing that the republicans have tried out this whole rogue's gallery of candidates who are going to be the great conservative alternative to romney and every one of them has turned out to be flawed unable to put together

a coherent sentence in some cases and so finally they've turned to newt gingrich the remainder me and who can give a good speech but it's fascinating the establishment of the party the republican party is terrified of the prospect that newt will actually win the nomination is santorum going to be the next and i'm not i'm not mitt candidate there are in i was there are social conservatives who are looking for santorum rise and probably it's probably unlikely at this point i want is this close i mean it's and are they if you know if one of these things goes he's a mormon but any of these things could happen i don't think so i think huntsman is just not taking seriously i think he worked for the obama administration he came directly over from a chinese ambassadorship i think that really doing them he's not willing to actually go after obama in the way all the candidates including romney have in a substantive way and when it comes to getting rich and romney romney is not red meat enough for the primary field you'll find then the general election that the

obama administration is more fearful of romney because he attracts independent voters the bottom line is president barack obama can't win this election republicans can only lose it and they have been doing a pretty good job of losing it to date with all the infighting. it will leave it at that because i think that there is a grain of truth there and only a grain are just. ok our last question our quick fire the chamber of commerce will be hosting the r. and c's annual holiday party by the way they're not calling the christmas party fox news i got to be all over this the republican national party's annual holiday party washing d.c. next week so what will be some of the stocking stuffers for the one percent in attendance will be a hundred dollar bills not to spend just a light cigars with or be free tickets to see charlie sheen because when it comes to class warfare in america other republicans are winning or see chartered helicopter ride so they don't have to deal with those pesky occupy wall street protesters when they venture out of their gated communities what's it going to be bryant or maybe they can have their own five twenty seven right to exercise their

free speech rights and get the message out ok. you know there was a fundraiser at the chamber of commerce just the other day and the occupy protesters rolled out a roll of red carpet and put real ninety nine percent working people underneath the red carpet so that the one percent could could do what they do every day step on the ninety nine percent and i think as roger so eloquently put it we've concluded that republicans in the chamber of commerce hate the ninety nine percent so all likeliness it'll be pepper spray and the stockings of every one of these republicans so that they can get out the door clearly ok and i think it's going to advance copies of the chamber's new book how to the how do you how to manual soon to be released how to destroy america not feel any remorse so. any thank you thank you guys for that.

aid budget deficit isn't the real problem with congress it's an empathy deficit luckily researchers at the university of chicago may have just discovered a solution to that problem according to a new study published this month in science magazine the latest animal discovered to be able to empathize with others is rats that's right rats are empathetic experiment like this two rats who normally share a cage were placed in a new cage and which one of the rats was restrained in a tube that could only be opened from the outside of the cage once the rat that was roaming free in the cage was let out of the cage and completely free it time and time again went back to let his cage buddy free as well think about that for a second the rat was free but wasn't satisfied until his cage he was free to researchers said that the free rat acted far more agitated when its fellow rat was

restrained nearby a sign of what researchers call emotional contagion which is often only observed in humans and more developed mammals even when the free rat was given a choice between green his cage mate or eating chocolate the fried rat for the fried red fried his buddy just as often as one richard researcher said there was no other reason to take this action except to terminate the distress of the trapped rats in the rat model world seeing the same behavior repeated over and over basically means that this action is rewarding to the rat as in rats get pleasure out of helping other rats they found we were warty. which is something that cannot be said about today's republican party that apparently gets absolutely no pleasure at all from helping fellow americans who are less fortunate and fallen on hard times or even dying and are in desperate need of help they get no pleasure from empathy like rats do i mean the rat if i could talk would have probably struck

a different tune empathizing for example with the unemployed. don't blame wall street don't blame the big banks if you don't have a job and you're not rich blame you'll say you don't think the banks have a rap probably would have taken a different tune empathizing with those who can't get health insurance this whole idea that you have theory thank you. thank you thank you saying that society should just let him die. like a rat probably would be more empathetic to those who have a different sexual orientation. there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military when our kids can't openly celebrate christmas in

school in two thousand and two when i was deployed to iraq and to lie about it was because i'm a gay soldier that didn't want to lose my job my question is under when you're president he's doing to circumvent the progress that's been made for you lesbian soldiers in the military. i just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family and i don't want them to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid a successful. it is. a read probably would be more empathetic to the civilians in war torn nations that we've invaded and not staying stuff like we should take their oil to. iran is going to take over a rocket if that's going to happen we should just take you know so i say we can't do you know you don't want to be used when you want to or are you the victor belong

to score as you carrot we want to we want to we hand over disappear we don't even know and we leave. a rat probably would be more empathetic to undocumented immigrants who raised families in america paid their taxes and contributing to their communities. three hundred fifty thousand children are born here to mothers here who are illegal aliens i mean that's the size of the city of st louis this is it's like waking up and finding an additional ten people living in your house they didn't expect all of a sudden now we're just being taken advantage of we're getting refugees now who have never used a telephone a tooth brush a toilet paper you're telling me they're going to assimilate they will never assimilate they come here and they bring their destitute ways to this country and they never assimilate and then their children become gangbangers meanwhile republicans want congress to work on some other form of constitutional control that being the fourteenth amendment to the united states constitution constitute basically the anchor baby amendment to future of l.a.

particularly and probably america lies in your school district to see how well those kids are educated what their attitudes are are they trying to learn english do they have any kind of traditional value system and all these a b. what america used to be. or are they taking their mexican values because most of them are mexicans and you know basically setting up acapulco north and the rat would probably be more empathetic to our nation's young people who go to college and come out deep in debt and unable to find a job. many of them are people oh one hundred twenty thousand dollars in debt from student loans for getting a fine arts degree and jobs in the field and pay twenty five thousand dollars well you know either you were not educated somewhere along the way that you're not going to pay this with that kind of money or you just did something foolish now that these kids from occupy whatever have gotten used to urinate and defecate in the

streets when they go back home are their parents going to have to housebreak of all over again. teach how to use the parties the bathrooms if you are a parent of a returning hero from occupy wall street you might want to put some newspaper down . and strategic points inside the house of the student loan program began when lyndon johnson announced it i think with a fifteen million dollars program it's an absurdity what does it do it expands the ability of students to stay in college longer because they don't see the cost would you kill the radical student loan program i don't think the federal government should be in the business of paying for programs and building up huge debt out there is nothing more dramatically failing then in that program so no there is no authority in the constitution for the federal government be dealing with education we should get rid of the pro loan programs we should get rid of department of

education education pay for it how do they down pay for college if you marry not the way you behave for cell phones and computers this is about and it gives them socialism communism this is about shutting down the stock exchange the brooklyn bridge the subways making sure the ninety nine percent in america can't go to work can't you know trade their assets then that's essentially un-american i hope that they're unsuccessful today because i don't think it's a movement i think it's an abomination ironically so why is it the science tells us this week that a rat can't be happy until his fellow rat is free like the republicans their one percent donors are perfectly content being rich and free while their fellow americans and deeper and deeper into debt are losing their jobs and are dying i guess is all i want to answer rats are nicer and more empathetic than republicans. keep that in mind the next time you see one in your house before you bust out the

rat traps knit a tiny little necktie slip it a little fella and run him as a primary challenger against your local republican politician because in the end you'll get a lot more calm compassion out of this guy than these guys when we come back i'll be joined by health care visionary dr peter beilenson this week's conversation with a great long. drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made who can you trust no one who is human view with a global machinery see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

provides conversations with great minds i'm drawn by dr peter b. a once a week early heads up the health department in howard county maryland where he and his team have launched the healthy howard initiative a program adjoins individuals businesses schools community organizations and government to create and make sessile healthy alternatives in many different aspects of daily life for county residents for thirteen years he served as the health commissioner of baltimore city and maryland for its vision led.